Talking to Yourself
by done.with.marblesxx
Summary: After the incident with the pixies, Professor Lockhart is depressed. There's only one person who can make him feel better. Oneshot.


**Talking to One's Self**

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**Author's Note: **This is from a challenge I did where you take any of the Harry Potter books and flip to a random chapter and take the first sentence of the chapter. Then that sentence has to be the first sentence of the story you're writing. So there you go. I italicized the first sentence.

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_Since the disastrous episode of the pixies, Professor Lockhart had not brought live creatures to class. _This had relieved most of the students of Hogwarts, second years especially who had witnessed the pixie attacks first hand and wished never to see such a thing again. Lockhart now only resorted to reading from his books which accounted his dashing experiences, _Year With The Yeti _and _Gadding With The Ghouls_, please check Flourish and Botts for the complete book sets. It was unbearably dull for Harry and his friends, but much better than facing pixies or other strange and dangerous creatures that Lockhart couldn't handle.

While the Defense Against the Dark Arts students were satisfied with the dry lessons of only reading since they could easily sleep through it, the professor himself was not. One day, after the second years had dashed out of the classroom like Hippogriffs who had been denied of their meat for a day, Professor Lockhart retired to his room with a sigh, a sigh soheavy that it hung in the atmosphere. He barely gave his grinning portraits a look and slumped down in his magnificent, gold-encrusted chair, ignoring the piles and piles of fan letters he had yet to answer. (He really should get Harry Potter to assist him again. Such a help he was! And he looked like he had enjoyed the experience too!)

Lockhart tapped his finger against the wooden desk, preoccupied with his thoughts. How, how, _how _had the pixies gone so wrong? He had predicted they wouldn't be so dangerous. They were merely blue beings with wings! Sure they had the sharp teeth and nails, but he hadn't expected them to be _that _hard to control.

"What's wrong now, Lockhart?" a voice addressed him. Lockhart looked up, his upset emotion showing all over his facial features.

"I'm afraid everything's going wrong," he answered, certainly brought down from the pedestal he had set for himself. "I mean, I've won _Witch Weekly's _Best Smile Award five times! I think I'm entitled to some control over _pixies._"

_"_Calm down, Lockhart. The pixies couldn't have been _that _bad."

"They _were_. It was horrid!" protested the professor, sounding like a little, whiny child. He flipped his curly, golden hair and groaned, shoving his head into the pile of letters from enthusiastic fans, causing glitter to fly into the air; obvious some adoring fan had inserted some pink glitter into the letter. It would've disgusted most people, but to Lockhart, it was a delight. It _would've _been, but he was too preoccupied with complaining to notice.

"Now, now, Lockhart. Put your head up. If you keep rubbing your head in those letters, you'll mess the curls in your hair and we know what _that _does to your mood," came the voice. Grudgingly admitting the truth of the statement, Gilderoy Lockhart, Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, raised his head with a sigh and stared at the portrait, a golden frame around the canvas, given the place-of-honor on his wall, the portrait of himself. As of this moment, the portrait wasn't grinning widely or shooting flirtatious winks, but it was staring at the real Lockhart with a disapproving eye.

"You're better than this, Lockhart. I mean, _we're _better than this! We've won the Best Smile Award five times! Look at all the books we've published! You're in _Hogwarts, _teaching! What's the problem? That you can't stop pixies from devouring your ear and hanging your student up on the ceiling?"

"That _is _a problem," Lockhart, the real one, shot back at the replica of himself. "A student hanging from the ceiling is a very big problem!"

The portrait scoffed, rolling his eyes which wasn'tattractive at all, and replied, "He's _Longbottom! _A clumsy and forgetful boy. You know, I've heard he forgot his own _Remembrall_. I mean, who _does_ that?"

"He was still my responsibility!"

"Look, it doesn't matter now," Lockhart Number Two answered, shooting Lockhart Number One a look. "That's the past, and we don't dwell on the past."

"I know," sighed the Defense Professor, uncharacteristically looking sullen. "But I feel odd, just reading the books to the students! Shouldn't I be doing _something_? I mean, Professor Dante always demonstrated during his lectures when I was at Hogwarts."

"Oi, Professor Dante was a _nutter_!If he was such a great professor, then how'd weend up with the lack of Defense skills?"

Lockhart gave him a weary look. "You know we never practiced or did the assignments. We were almost a Squib."

"Let's not look at the past," the portrait replied, looking nervous and disgusted at the thought of their Hogwarts years. "Remember?"

"Yes, yes," answered Lockhart distractedly. "But what am I supposed to do in my class? Just read my exploits? They've probably already read it! Most of the Wizarding World has and why would they be an exception?"

Lockhart in the portrait sighed, shaking his head and clutching his forehead as if the Lockhart _not _in the portrait had said something completely foolish. "Look. Lockhart, our books are like, the _classics_. Who _doesn't _reread classics? Everyone rereads the classics!"

"That's true," Lockhart admitted slowly, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"Of course it is." The one in the portrait sighed and reclined back in the chair that was provided in the portrait. "And I think you're doing them a favor. You know no one reads lovelier than us." The professor nodded back, agreeing fully. "And our books are wonderful. People should just constitute them to _memory_, they're so good!"

"You're right!" cried Lockhart, happily clapping his hands, causing a breeze which made few of the letters of admiration fall to the ground. "That should be my goal for the year. For them to memorize it! Besides, I'm sure the students can learn plenty from just my travels!"

The portrait nodded in response. "That's right."

Lockhart beamed, shooting the world his oh-so-handsome smile. "You know, we really should've taught Charms. We're so perfectly charming!"

The duplicate Lockhart laughed, nodding agreeably, clapping his hands and pushing back his blond locks. Lockhart joined in.

"Well, Lockhart, you always make me so giddy," sniffed Professor Lockhart, wiping away a tear that had resulted from their gallivanting.

"You know that's my job," the portrait answered, smiling broadly. Lockhart nodded, carefully pulling up the sleeves of his forget-me-not blue robes.

"Better start answering the fan letters," observed Lockhart with a musing smile. "Can't let them pile up too much."

So he began scribbling in his perfectly flowing script using his peacock quill, reading the disgustingly sentimental letters and giggling softly to himself as if he he was only a teenage girl who had received a love letter from a variety of admirers.

The next day, he fell to reading his booksenthusiastically, acting out parts and adding in unnecessary details that were not in the books. Most of the students were alarmed and they could only wonder of just _what_ had blown in their professor's mind and finally caused him to go mad. But only Lockhart and his portrait knew, simpering in their pride.

Oh, and_ look_. Some more pink glitter from one of the letters.


End file.
